


Seventeen

by Bullfinch



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Intoxication, M/M, Pre-Relationship, discussion of past rape/abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-29
Updated: 2015-05-29
Packaged: 2018-04-01 21:17:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4034890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bullfinch/pseuds/Bullfinch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fenris and Hawke attend a celebration at the Hanged Man. The evening doesn’t go as planned, for either of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seventeen

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Takes place early in Act 2, before they've slept together.

“…but then she wouldn’t have been a fishmonger, would she?”

Fenris bursts out laughing, then claps a hand over his mouth. He hadn’t mean to be quite that loud. In the opposite armchair, Hawke giggles, taking another swig of wine. “I can’t believe you actually laughed at that. No one’s ever laughed at that.”

“Perhaps they hadn’t had enough wine yet. Speaking of which…” Fenris reaches out.

Hawke leans forward and slaps the bottle into his hand. “You know, we should really get going. They’re probably wondering where we are.” He grins.

The innuendo ghosts between them like a shiner through the shallows, vanishing into darker waters where it dissuades pursuit. Fenris takes a long pull from the bottle and lurches to his feet. “You’re right. Let us depart.”

Hawke darts forward and catches the bottle as it dangles from Fenris’s careless grip. “I can’t believe you finished off the entire thing.”

“Pardon me? I was not alone in my efforts.”

Hawke snorts. “I drank a third of it.  _Maybe.”_

He’s right. Fenris shrugs. “It saves me from having to get drunk off that vile substance they try to pass off as ale.” Then he descends the stairs, grasping the banister to keep his balance.

——

He supposes he knew the weather had turned, could hear the clatter of fat raindrops bombarding the roof of the mansion. He just wasn’t quite prepared for just how bad it was.

They share Hawke’s cloak as best they can, but the elements will not be denied. By the time they reached the Hanged Man, they’re both soaked to the skin, and they stomp in cold and dripping. Hawke shakes his head vigorously, and tiny droplets fly off his hair and beard to spray Fenris in the face. Fenris shields himself to little effect. “You’re like a dog,” he grumbles.

Hawke wrings out his cloak as they go to the back. “Well, I’ve been called worse things.”

“There you are!” Varric calls. “Wow, you two look like a couple of drowned rats.”

“I don’t know.” Merrill cocks her head. “Hawke’s a bit big for a rat, don’t you think? Maybe a drowned bear?”

“Well, Fenris just called me a dog,” Hawke replies. “But I think I like ‘bear’ better.”

“Good to know  _I_ still look like a rat, at least.” Fenris drags a bench out with his toes and seats himself, Hawke sliding in next to him.

“Yes, but a very cute rat.” Isabela winks at him across the table. From the corner seat, Anders rolls his eyes.

“Assorted wet animals aside, Varric, let me be…” Hawke scans the gathered company. “…er, not the first to congratulate you on the completion of your excellent series  _Tempting the Templar…_ are we really the last ones here? Where’s Aveline?”

Varric shrugs. “Sadly, the Guard-Captain couldn’t join us tonight. But it’s all right, I won’t hold it against you. Anyways, you’re just in time! We were about to start up a game of Never Have I Ever.”

“Except this time,” Isabela interjects, "we’re all playing against Merrill. Since she’s never even  _close_  to losing.”

“Everyone against—“ Hawke turns to her. “Merrill, are you all right with this?”

“Oh, yes!” She flaps a hand. “All in good fun, I don’t mind.”

Fenris jumps half out of his seat when the waitress slams two mugs of ale down in front of him and Hawke. Varric grins. “Well, now that we’re all properly armed, who wants to begin?”

“Wait.” Fenris leans in. “Explain this game to me.”

So Hawke takes him through the rules. Fenris listens, nodding, getting to work on his ale. 

“All done? Then I’ll begin.” Varric raises a finger. “Never have I ever prayed to the Creators.”

An easy enough start, and Merrill takes her drink with grace. Next is Isabela. “Never have I ever touched…one of those deer things. You know, that the Dalish bring around with them everywhere.”

“A halla?” Merrill looks faintly aghast at Isabela’s flippant description but recovers quickly, tipping back her mug. “Oh, is it my turn? Sorry. All right, never have I ever been on a ship.”

That one gets everyone. Fenris reflects that the ale isn’t as bad as he remembered. Perhaps they’ve improved the recipe since he was last here. Hawke’s contribution is “Never have I ever braided my hair,” which sees everyone raising their mugs again (Hawke regards them all with a self-satisfied grin). Then Fenris makes his offering. “Never have I ever forged a deal with a resident of the Fade.”

The baleful glare from Anders he receives with great enjoyment. Varric rolls his eyes. “Trust the elf to drop that one on the table.”

It takes only one more round to knock Merrill out of the game, although Fenris’s mug is empty by that point as well. She laughs and toasts with the rest of them, then takes her leave. A project to work on at home, she says. Isabela smacks the table and proposes another round. Fenris toasts again to that with his second mug. He rather likes this game.

Isabela pauses for effect. Then: “Never have I ever shaved my face.”

Fenris is the only one safe from that, and he finds himself somewhat disappointed without an excuse to drink more. Hawke shoots back with “Never have I ever worn a brassiere,” which is when Anders’s expression grows utterly wretched and, with shaking hands, he lifts his ale. The table explodes with laughter, and Isabela demands a story, only to be reminded by a desperate Anders that a story is required only when a single person drinks and he knows for a  _fact_  that she’s worn a brassiere, since she doesn’t make much effort to hide them beneath her shirt, or even any effort at all. No amount of pleading from Isabela prizes open the vault of secrecy to reveal the treasure within, and they must move on.

Fenris’s “Never have I ever been to Ferelden” hits the entire table, a feat of which he is quite proud. He thinks he might have a chance to win here. Then Anders retorts with “Never have I ever been to Tevinter,” and Fenris is drinking again.

Varric is next, and he gives Isabela a nasty grin. (Fenris suspects, from the looks they’ve been sniping at each other, that they have some sort of rivalry going on.) Then he tips a nod at her. “Never have I ever been tied up during sex.”

Fenris freezes.

Someone is saying something. _“Hawke, really? Not even once?”_ Fenris isn’t listening. His hand strays toward his ale. It is true, after all. He remembers it well, the rope rubbing burns into his wrists, digging marks into his thighs and calves. The knowledge that he could escape but  _couldn’t_ , not with Danarius’s imperious will looming dangerous and close. His fingers close around the handle.

But does this merit a drink? After all, it wasn’t a choice, it was something inflicted on him. Something he didn’t want—even if he didn’t understand that at the time, understood only his position as a tool for his master’s use. Then again—it  _was_  only later that he realized how wrong it was. At the time he desired only to be satisfactory. So that Danarius would think him valuable, would praise him, would tell him he was loved. A convulsion shivers down his arm, and his grip clenches hard around the mug.

Then a hand is resting gently but firmly on his wrist. Hawke’s hand. “Fenris? Do you want to—get some air?”

“It’s still raining cats and Mabaris out there,” Isabela remarks. “Listen to it on the roof.”

Fenris lurches to his feet, yanking his arm away. His chair topples over, cracking on the wooden floor. “No. I—yes. I’m—I’m leaving.”

Then he turns on his heel and stalks toward the door, veering only once. A table corner bangs into his hip and spins him half around. That will bruise, he thinks distantly, as he shoves the door open with such force that it slams against the outside wall.

The rain falls on him like it’s got a grudge. His clothes had just started to dry, but they’re soaked again in seconds. He stumbles down the street, needing to get away, to be someplace where they won’t see the truth, won’t know what happened to him. Only to end up facing a wall and stopping short just in time. Where did that come from? He rubs his eyes, blinks water out of them. Right. He’s drunk. That’s why the damned walls won’t stay out of his way.

“Fenris!”

He presses on, keeping a hand on the wooden structure to his left. That’ll keep it from trying to smack him in the face again.

“Fenris! Wait a minute!”

His feet sink into the street. The storm’s turned it to mud, and a torrent rushes by in the gutter beside him. Miserable weather. Why did he go out this evening in the first place? Then all of a sudden the wall he’s been leaning on disappears.

His balance was already deserting him when he left the mansion and it hasn’t gotten any better. He flails, having just resigned himself to a gutter bath when something grabs his elbow and hauls him upright. So instead he falls the other way, into a solid, warm bulk—

“I think you've had a bit too much to drink tonight.”

Oh. It’s Hawke.

He stands Fenris up. “Are you all right?”

Fenris stares up at Hawke. There’s something frantic inside of him that has no way out. Like a moth trapped inside a jar of stone. He tries to expose it before it gets hurt. “I wasn’t sure if Danarius—counted.”

Hawke’s face changes, fractures, a seam opening up. He says nothing. Fenris struggles to figure out what’s happened, but he just can’t assemble the pieces right now. Desperate, he fills the rain-spattered silence. “I tell myself now I didn’t want it. But at the time I had no—no idea what it was  _supposed_  to be like. I never even thought of refusing him. And it made him—made him cherish me even more—“

His throat closes up as if garroted. But it’s too late. He’s already said it, and Hawke has heard.  _Hawke._  Like coming together with a lover for a first time and exposing himself completely, only to have his lover catch sight of some hideous birthmark, gray-green and gnarled, and to see their face contort in horror, to watch them flee from the room, leaving him alone—

“Fenris, I’m—I’m sorry.”

No. This is worse. To stay, to stare at the birthmark, to pretend it’s fine as it bulges grotesque from his skin—Fenris whirls and weaves away down the street. “Why are you sorry? You didn’t do anything.”

The splash of footsteps behind him. “No, but it’s—it’s awful. You shouldn’t have had to go through that.”

Fenris tilts his head back and laughs, his wet bangs sticking to his forehead. “You have no idea what I’ve ‘ _had to go through.’_  If the game continued along those lines, I wouldn’t have made it a single round. I should have just finished off my drink right then and gotten it over with.”

A guiding hand on his back, steering him away from another conniving wall. “It was stupid, we should never have played—“

“I didn’t figure it out until after I escaped. This—thing people kept going on about as if it were something—special, or at least eminently enjoyable, and all it ever made me feel was…unclean—“ It’s as if he’s cracked open his chest now and all the filth and muck is pouring out, the same color as the dust-clogged torrent rushing through the gutter by his feet. And he can’t close the break to dam it off again. “—not that it mattered, I was a slave, I was already unclean. But afterwards, I was curious, I sought it out. A man took me home with him. And do you know what? He almost worshipped me. Treated me with such kindness. He asked me what I wanted, asked me if I was all right. I’d told him I’d never been with anyone before. A lie, of course. Perhaps he could tell. I don’t know.”

The buildings on either side grow less shabby, the torrent washing over paving stones now instead of dirt. Fenris’s breath seizes in his chest, and he struggles to speak, but feels he  _must_ , that the keeping back will damage him irreparably. “It was a truly remarkable night. I couldn’t remember ever having been that happy before. And the next morning, that’s when I realized exactly what Danarius had done to me, all those years. That it was supposed to be like  _this._  That I was supposed to be regarded with—fondness, not appraisal, to be touched with tenderness instead of command. That I was supposed to be loved. And instead I was  _used_ , for years. For  _years._ And that’s what I carry with me now. How much was taken from me? Replaced with—this.” Fenris slaps a marked hand onto his chest. “What  _he_  made of me.“

Silence but for the rain. For a moment Fenris thinks Hawke left him somewhere along the way, and he’s been talking to himself the entire time. He feels foolish until he realizes there’s still a hand on his back pointing him away from the walls, and then he feels doubly foolish.

“Will you come back to the estate with me?”

Fenris folds his arms. It’s getting cold now, especially with his clothes soaked through. “Why?”

“Because you’ve had too much to drink and I don’t think you should be alone right now.”

He snorts. “I can hold my liquor, you know.”

A sigh. “No, you can’t. Please just come to the estate.”

“No!” Fenris wrenches away, stumbles sideways then starts up the street again. “I don’t want to be near you anymore!”

Hawke follows close behind. “Then what do you want to do?”

“Go home.” He pushes his rain-drenched hair out of his eyes. “Drink more. Fall asleep. Forget any of this ever happened.”

Hawke’s beside him now, gazing down, his face half-hidden by the shadow of his hood. “Fenris, I hope one day you can forgive me for this, but if you decide to go home alone, when you get there you’re going to find me standing in the main hall waiting for you.”

Fenris tries to go faster, to get away, and slips on a wet paving stone. Only to be caught by Hawke before he can fall and crack his head open. He struggles, squirming out of Hawke’s arms. “Why do you insist on following me?!”

“Because I want to help you. Or at the very least to stop you from hurting yourself.” Hawke tries to hold him briefly, then lets him go.

“I’m not going to hurt myself.” He passes under an arch, shielded from the rain for a half-second before it batters down on him again.

“You just told me you were going to keep drinking. That counts.  _Please_ , Fenris. I just—I care about you. Please come to the estate.”

 _I care about you._  Fenris stops in the middle of the plaza, water trickling down his temples, dripping off the tip of his nose. “Why—why would you—“

“Can you trust me?” Hawke grasps his arms, perhaps as a measure of comfort, but more likely just to keep him from swaying. “If at no other time, then at least tonight.”

Fenris stands there and shivers. Of course he trusts Hawke, although he feels like he’s deceiving the man, as if Hawke is seeing something that isn’t there and Fenris hasn’t made any effort to correct the misconception. “I—all right.” He shivers again, guilt bubbling up on the surface of the cesspool inside of him as he takes what is given and returns the kindness with nothing. Or even less.

The dark closes around them, the air humid and thick between the fat drops of rain. Fenris struggles to breathe as Hawke guides him, feeling vaguely as if the night itself is suffocating him. They go through the flooded streets, torrents washing over Fenris's bare feet. Hawke's arm lingers around his waist. At last they reach the mansion, and they duck inside, safe at last from the downpour if not from the thundering rumble it makes on the roof. Fenris hovers in the dark atrium, letting the water pool on the carpet, while Hawke goes off into the house and returns carrying two enormous towels. He wraps one around Fenris, and it stops the shivering.

The fire in the sitting room is still going, just barely, but even the faint touch of warmth is enough to take the edge off of the chill on Fenris's skin. Hawke stokes it as Fenris curls up in his customary armchair, hugging his knees. He can't remember why he came here. The fire roars to life, and Hawke steps back and sits down opposite him.

For a moment there’s only the crackle of flames. Fenris tries to think of something to say. All he can come up with is “I’m sorry.”

Hawke twitches, his fingers tightening around the arms of his chair as if he’s about to stand. But he remains where he is. “You don’t have anything to apologize for,” he murmurs.

“How about for shouting at you?” Fenris sinks into the plush of the seat back, wondering if between that and the oversized towel he can simply disappear.

Hawke shrugs. “I spend most of my days getting shot at or stabbed. A little shouting can’t hurt me.”

Fenris stares into the fireplace. The warmth is fuller now, and at last it pierces the chill and starts to seep into him. “Hawke?”

“Hm?”

“Tell me—what I’ve missed.”

A pause. “What d’you mean?”

“When you were younger, you must have—loved. Had people who loved you.” Fenris scrubs rain out of his eyes. “Tell me—what it was like.”

Hawke heaves in a deep sigh, but he smiles absently at the merry flames. “So you want to hear the many romantic journeys of Rowan Hawke? Well, they’re…not actually that many, and not very exciting, but I’ll try not to put you to sleep. Er, let’s see…the first girl I dated was Hannah Maple. I was fifteen and she was sixteen, and she came from a family of saddlers…”

Fenris lets the stories break over him like ocean surf over his ankles, lets himself sink slowly into the sand. Hannah Maple wasn’t the one, as it turned out, but Hawke thought Addison Gorrie (they were both seventeen) might have been—she lived just down the street, and they spent every day together for an entire summer, until her uncle died suddenly and the whole family had to pick up and move to Denerim. After that there was no one for a while, until a charming young man named Edwin Fand came to town. Unfortunately, Edwin had a slight problem in that he couldn’t seem to keep his hands out of other people’s purses, and he was forced to leave Lothering when the accusations began mounting up. After that a few more brief flings, and then there was Carissa Hart, but that came to a mutual end when they decided they weren’t so much interested in a romantic relationship as a friendly one. And then the Blight hit, and there wasn’t much time for romance anymore.

Fenris listens with a distant disbelief. The way Hawke speaks, it sounds like a fairy tale, some idyllic life achievable only by the most fortunate. The laughter, the easy intimacy, the days upon days spent lying by each other’s sides…it all seems too good to be true. And yet he described it as “not very exciting.” Is this what it’s supposed to be like for everyone? Fenris is still trying to reconcile it as Hawke trails off, finished at last.

Another silence. Fenris tries to figure out if he’s sobered up at all and decides he hasn’t. Then he tries to figure out if he feels any better and realizes he does, marginally. So that’s something. “Hawke.”

“Yes?”

“What would it have been like if—“  _If I had had that?_  He rubs his eyes. A poor question.

“What’s that?”

Fenris rests his chin on his knees, thinking. Then: “If I were seventeen, and so were you. And I lived in Lothering, just down the street.” The concept so alien he can hardly begin to imagine it. “What would it have been like then?”

“Fenris—“

It comes out as little more then a whisper. Fenris glances up, but Hawke’s looking away, and when next he speaks his voice is perfectly steady. “If you were seventeen and lived in Lothering, just down the street, you would probably be living with your family. They might be stonemasons, or tanners. Or butchers. Or maybe bakers.”

“Yes,” Fenris says. “Bakers.”

“Right then.” Hawke nods. “Seventeen years old, from a family of bakers. So let's say one morning I see you there rolling out a slab of dough, with flour up to your elbows and spotted all over your face. And you’re so busy we can hardly get two words in to each other. But when you smile at me I feel my heart skip a beat—“

“You heart skips a beat?” Fenris frowns. “That sounds dangerous.”

“And yet I want more.” Hawke grins at him. "Which is why you find me there again the next morning, browsing your wares. And you ask, ‘didn’t I just see you here yesterday?’ And I reply, ‘oh, yes, I just forgot to buy something, could you help me out?’ And this time you're not quite so busy, so we can talk a little about how business is and how you like being a baker. So, Fenris. Do you like being a baker?"

Fenris realizes Hawke has turned to him, awaiting an answer. "I—" He hasn't any idea whether or not he'd like it. But he thinks he would. "Yes. I enjoy it very much."

"I—that's perfect. I'm glad to hear it." He pauses for a moment as if lost for words, only watching Fenris; but then he seems to shake himself, and his grin is back. "Now this time when you smile at me, I feel my heart skip  _two_  beats.”

“That sounds even more dangerous,” Fenris mutters. “I wasn’t expecting so much peril.”

“Peril indeed,” Hawke continues. “Or so I feel, as I try to mount the courage to ask you if you’re free anytime soon. And…my courage fails me.” His face grows solemn, the picture of regret. “I’m walking away, leaving the bakery, and I make it all the way to the doorway before finally I manage to spin around and blurt out— ‘Fenris, I don’t suppose you have any spare time this afternoon?’ “

Again Hawke turns to him. Fenris hunches forward, caught up in the storytelling. "Yes," he says eagerly. "Yes, I do."

Hawke’s more relaxed now, finding his rhythm. “The Maker sends his blessing down upon us that day. ‘Yes,' you tell me. ‘Why do you ask, Rowan?’ But you’re smiling at me, because you know where this is going. And I reply, ‘I was wondering if perhaps you’d like to go on a walk with me today.’ And you cock your hip and frown as if thinking it over, leaving me trembling in the doorway, awaiting your answer. Then at last you turn back to your work, glancing at me over your shoulder with an offhanded 'I'll see you later.' And I dash home with my heart singing, and my mother asks me what happened and I tell her the baker’s son just agreed to go on a walk with me.”

Fenris clutches the arms of his chair, his knuckles whitening. He wants this badly, so badly it nearly hurts to think of it, and he must distract himself with his too-tight grip, his fingers aching against the polished wood.

“And that afternoon I swing by the bakery again and find you out of your apron, clean of flour, except for this one tiny spot on your cheek. So I brush it off, and then realize this is the first time I've touched you. And I spin away, blushing like a fiend, only to hear you say, ‘Thank you, Rowan. Shall we go?’"

Fenris touches his cheek, brushing it with his fingertips. He imagines they're Hawke's, wiping away a wayward smear of flour. His own fingers are thin; Hawke's would be strong and rough from his work in the fields. Fenris can almost feel the callouses.

"And we walk off to the north," Hawke says. "Past the rows of wheat, out into the open fields.”

Fenris speaks, finds his voice trembling. “Is—the sun out on this day? Is it warm?”

“Yes.” Hawke smiles, and Fenris thinks he sees there the same want he has within himself, the want that reaches out always for something Fenris knows does not exist any longer; yet it reaches anyway. “The summer’s only just begun," Hawke continues, "and the heat hasn’t quite settled in yet. The sun shines down, and when you look at me it makes your eyes sparkle like a rushing stream. And the breeze blows your hair back, so you tuck it behind your ear as we walk. I—I haven't noticed how beautiful you are, really, until this moment. But I notice it now. We follow the river, watch the fish jumping, the frogs startling off the bank and into the water. And we talk and joke, and you have the most amazing laugh I’ve ever heard. But the sun’s just a little too warm, so we lie down in the shade of an oak tree, gazing up at the rustling leaves. And then I…”

Hawke falters for a moment, then goes on. “I feel your hand slip into mine. And it fits as if it were meant to be there. In that moment everything is...it's perfect. It’s more than I knew I wanted. We're smiling at each other, the two of us, just—two seventeen-year-old kids without a bloody care in the world, lying in the shade of a tall green oak. And then you come closer so I take you in my arms and I hold you like I never want to let you go. There's nothing that separates us—“

“Hawke—“

He stops. “Yes?”

Fenris hesitates, gripping the arms of his chair so tight he’s sure he’ll leave dents. “Can you—show me?”

“Show you what?”

“What it feels like.” His voice is rough, his speech slurred. “To be…held like that.”

Stillness and silence, but for the dancing light, the snap and crackle of flame. Hawke rises, and Fenris does, too, wavering, steadying himself on the chair back.

Then Hawke is there, and he circles his arms around Fenris’s back, pulling him close.

They’re both still damp from the storm but the fire has helped, and anyway, Hawke is warm, Fenris finds, as he leans into Hawke’s solid chest. He doesn’t think they’ve ever been this close, although even if they have, he doubts his intoxicated mind could dredge up the memory right now.

“Fenris, you mean everything to me," Hawke murmurs, his chest rumbling with the words. 

Fenris discovers he feels safe.

Like none of it ever happened. Like he grew up in a small town with a river winding through it it, where the summers were hot but the breeze was cool enough. Like he’s not running from anything and never was, and there’s only this and what happens next. Like he can do anything he wants to. He shuts his eyes, immersing himself in the feeling, and relaxes, Hawke’s solid bulk the only thing holding him up.

A quiet laugh. “Are you falling asleep in my arms?”

That must be it—this must be a dream. It’s the only thing that makes sense. A dream of safety. Of someone kissing his hair, lifting him up with infinite tenderness, and carrying him through the silent dark.

——

When Fenris wakes up he feels unreservedly awful.

He tries to categorize the sensations. His head is on the verge of splitting open. His eyes are scraped raw, his mouth packed with sawdust. His stomach is about to turn itself inside out. What happened to him? Was he beaten? No, it’s not that kind of pain. Poisoned, maybe. Or spelled.

He freezes, his stomach twisting even further. Caught. They must have caught him.

He needs to get out of here. So he pushes himself upright, squinting—why is it so damned bright in here?—and crawls to the edge of the bed, planting his feet on the floor, right next to—

—Hawke.

Who’s asleep in an armchair, although—Fenris winces—not anymore, the creaking of the mattress having roused him. He blinks, shifting, rubs his eyes. “Hm? Fenris?”

The events of the previous night begin to assemble themselves.

“I…came here yesterday.” He’s barely aware he’s speaking. “I—was drunk, and I left the Hanged Man, and you—followed me—“

The walk through the storm comes back to him, and right on its heels, the most horrifying part, his sordid confession—to  _Hawke_ , of all people, who’s staring at him right now with a sickening concern, telling him, “I’m sorry, I just wanted to sit by you for a while and make sure the ale didn’t come back up. I must have drifted off—“

Then Hawke goes to touch him, but Fenris smacks his hand away, staggering to his feet, putting space between them. “Don’t—I shouldn’t—“

“Fenris—“ Hawke stands but doesn’t approach. “Listen, why don’t you sit down for a moment—“

“No! I should never have come here. I need to leave.” He stumbles for the door, shoves it open, heads down the corridor.

“Fenris,  _please_ , just take a moment—you don’t have to leave so soon!”

Hawke, following close behind,  _damn_  him. Fenris finds the main hall, strides across on shaking legs. “Just _leave me alone!”_

The dwarf steward leaps out of the way as Fenris hits the atrium, dogged still by Hawke, who  _won’t give up_ — “I’m begging you, Fenris, you don’t—“

The rest cut off as Fenris slams the front door shut behind him. He squints again, shading his eyes—why does the sun have to be  _so damned bright_ —

_“…and when you look at me it makes your eyes sparkle like a rushing stream.”_

He descends the stone stairs and pushes through the crowds, heading back to his mansion.


End file.
